Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Background & Significance: Once Doctor Who's format changed at the start of its 7th season, script editor Terrence Dicks was looking for ways to make the show's new format conceit (aliens arrive on Earth; The Doctor teams up with UNIT to fight them) work without it getting too stale and repetitive. How many times can you see aliens land on Earth and them attempt a take over without it actually feeling like a tired, awful conceit?

Written by Don Houghton and being the twilight story "directed" by Douglas Camfield before his brief return during the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era, "Inferno" is perhaps most famous for being "that one story about the alternate/parallel universe where everything is topsy turvy." It's heralded as a classic and considered not just one of the best Doctor Who stories of all time, but also the best Jon Pertwee story of all time in the Mighty 200 poll. So it's got... a reputation. And yet it's still not exactly perfect. Camfield had to bow out a few episodes into production leaving new producer Barry Letts to step in and pick up the slack based on Camfield's extensive notes.

Still though. Parallel universe! That's something, eh?

So let's get to it!

Commentary!:

Part 1:

It’s an inauspicious beginning.

The thing about “Inferno” that’s so interesting is that this
early on in the story there’s not a whole hell of a lot that is happening or
hinting at greater/future plans for the rest of the story. The majority of this
episode focuses on building out the world of the drill and what have you. And
there’s an ensemble here isn’t there? We’ve got The Doctor, Benton, The
Brigadier, and Liz. And on our guest-star Drill team we have Professor “the bad
guy” Stahlman, Petra (Stahlman’s assistant) Williams, Sir Keith “safety
concerns” Gold (as played by the delightful Christopher Benjamin), and Greg
“drilling expert” Sutton. And it’s a lot of dancing around the edges, setting
up the dynamics, showing what’s up and going on with this story and its world
so far.

Now, I’ll freely admit that this isn’t super terribly
interesting outside of the character interplay. Stahlman is clearly the bad guy
of the story. He’s totally obsessed with nothing but his success and ego. But
that doesn’t mean it’s not interesting to see the various politique of this
drilling operation.

That said, there is interesting stuff here. It’s an episode
that takes its time being methodical in setting up all the chess pieces on the
board. And that doesn’t make it so different than the first episode of
“Morbius”. Now, it’s nowhere near as good or awesome as “Morbius”, but it still
kinda works. The dynamics are all thrown around. It’s one thing to see Stahlman
be evil, but it’s another thing entirely to see Petra almost succumb to
Sutton’s whims, followed by a decision that she is loyal to Stahlman regardless
of what she thinks of him. So her interest in Sutton knows bounds and her
loyalty to Stahlman is the defining factor of her as a character.

What’d we learn about Sutton? Well… When two people are
cranking a wheel to try and shut down a drill he pushes them both aside and
tries to turn it off solo. GO GETTER!

And then there’s the Primords. And yeah, I’ll just call them
Primords right off the bat, because why not.

Honestly, the Primords are the obligatory monster of this
story. They’re around to build the tension and give The Doctor a pressing need
to fight something. Monstery to keep the stakes raised high. That’s unfair, I
think. This story doesn’t need Primords to make things more interesting, or at
least, the Primords are the bit of this that I’m easily the least interested
in. All it does is snarl and posture and threaten. Whatever. Yes, it’s
important for later but it’s clearly tacked on at the tail end of this episode
to give us something to come back to in episode two. Not only that, but it’s a
rubbish cliffhanger because we’ve already seen the monster before this. It was
peeking around a corner that one time. So this is just false stakes or whatever.

There’s also the promise of The Doctor’s escapade into the
wherever space he finds by switching on the TARDIS console while it’s connected
to the nuclear power. It’s a fine moment and terribly psychedelic in its
construction and lovely. And a hint for what is coming. And it is nice to see
the TARDIS console as it exists.

Finally, I must admit I love seeing The Doctor here. There’s
a comfort to his role in UNIT, a good mood if you will, that chains directly
from the events at the end of “Ambassadors of Death”. I love the way he weaves
in and out of the drilling narrative, clearly stuck in his own escapades (all
console related) but showing up in the drilling narrative just long enough to
remind Stahlman (every time, I might add) that while Stahlman might hold an
iron grip over everyone around him, he sure as frak don’t hold a grip over The
Doctor and The Doctor sees right through his ways. It’s quintessential Pertwee
and exactly what you want to see at the start of a seven-parter. Because what’s
going to stop him from stopping Stahlman?

Part 2:

The first time I watched this story I remember being
terribly antsy for what I eventually realized would be part three. It reminds
me of the first time I ever watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and I was
something like three minutes into just NPH staring at the camera giving his
opening monologue, and while I didn’t think it wasn’t good I remember just
thinking “Where’s the damn singing!” and “This is insane. There’s no singing?”
and “OMG Joss lied to me! I feel so betrayed.” Now, that was like… three
minutes into a twelve minute webisode of whatever, so clearly I am impatient
and quick to suspect betrayal in a story. And that was me after like three
minutes. Imagine me after a solid fifty with little to no spoilers. My faith
was wavering!

Here, the thing to remember is that this story is seven
episodes long. So we have PLENTY of time moving forward to explore whatever it
is this story wants to explore.

So we’re left with an episode that’s really just marking time.
And it’s fine. It’s much weaker than episode one because it doesn’t really get
us to any new ground outside of the green canister bit. Stahlman is still
running around and being a total jackass/pompous ass (and I mean total jackass/pompous
ass). Why no one deems it right to stop him is absolutely beyond me. That
people aren’t trusting The Doctor when The Doctor is trying to report him for
misdeeds is hilarious and inaccurate because he’s clearly up to no good and
clearly kinda a dick. Someone stop him, for god’s sakes.

And I love that the reasoning no one goes after Stahlman is
because he is in charge and clearly has authoritarian control over every aspect
of this project. Even the health and safety people aren’t stopping him.

Really, you’re spoiled for choice when it comes to actual
moments where we could/should stop him. Maybe it’s the moment one of the
scientists turns into a crazy deranged monster and gets shot through the heart
twice and then doesn’t die for like a few minutes. Or maybe it’s the bit where
he knows that three people have died in the span of just a few hours and his
response is “faster, faster”. Clearly he doesn’t worry about any potential
fines or citations or getting sued. Nor does he seem to care for himself, what
with the way he grabs the canister without ANY PROTECTIVE GLOVES.

It’s really quite sociopathic, isn’t it?

I also quite enjoy The Doctor’s ambivalence here. He
couldn’t possibly care less about what’s going on in the mining operation. What
interests him is his own scientific research. He’s only at this facility to continue
his experiments powering the TARDIS console with Stahlman’s nuclear power. And he’s
blinded by anything that isn’t that. He turns on the power even though he’s not
allowed to (and sure, that’s never stopped The Doctor before, but sure) with
next to no regard for the actual safety concerns of the drilling operations.
Well. That’s not true. He cares. It’s just that there’s more pressing concerns
of his. And why waste your time dealing with something that no one’s going to
move on? The Brigadier cares, but not enough to pull rank and shut everything
down.

So The Doctor walks off and does his own experiments, and
it’s jarring because he seems to not care at all about what anyone else thinks.
He’s a man on a mission.

Given that, doesn’t that just mean that The Doctor is not so
different from Stahlman? Both men are terribly driven and blinded by the
consequences of their actions. They just focus on their work. And in that I
find it fantastic to see the two of them mirrored so effectively. I love the
rivalry between them, and the fact that The Doctor recklessly scarpers off to
wherever it is he’s off to at the end of this episode with wanton disregard for
Liz (his own assistant) and The Brigadier (the guy who’s technically his boss
but who never really tells him no). It’s bonkers bananas. And I love that the
two of them are so tunnel-visioned that they clearly don’t notice the actions
of the other. Or much really care enough to actively get them to stop.

Other than that, like I said before, this story doesn’t
really include much new things, does it? It’s mostly just more of the drilling
story being a drilling story and how it needs to move faster. Sure, there’s set
pieces that involve running around the exterior scaffolding of the factory, but
at the same time, it’s not terribly well done. Honestly, for Camfield I’m a
little disappointed and this isn’t near the level that I’ve seen him at
previously. It’s not bad. Certainly not. Serviceable, yes. But it’s lacking that
uumph and panache that we expect from him. His other stories are (at least thus
far) splashy and dynamic and exciting whereas this is… not there yet. It’s not
bolstered by its performances or by much of anything. It’s mostly going for
some campy horror (the smear on the hand is of particular note) and not much
else.

But all that is about to change.

Part 3:

So after a quick start to the episode in which Liz and The
Brigadier wonder where the hell The Doctor went and how the hell they’re going
to get The Doctor back now that Stahlman has turned off all the power to The
Doctor’s hut, stranding The Doctor in this new parallel universe.

And what of this parallel universe? Well, it’s got all the
makings of a lovely time, doesn’t it? The Brigadier (or rather, his alternate
universe counterpart The Brigade Leader has no mustache and is clean shaven,
while instead of being… well… two-eyed he has an eye patch over his eye and one
big ol’ gnarly scar running down his face. Liz’s hair is neither red, nor down,
colored dark instead and in something of a bob. Stahlman and Petra wear solid
white (Stahlman’s outfit includes badass sunglasses to show we’re kinda sorta
in the future a little. There’s more guns. The ambiance is darker.

Really, this is why we watch "Inferno". For this. And within
minutes it’s easy to remember why this story is as lauded as it is. The car
chase at the beginning of this episode is impossibly thrilling and exciting and
I would almost imagine that this car chase was the whole reason why the production
team chose Letts for this story. It’s… amazing. And what’s great about it is
you have next to no time to react that it’s happening. The Doctor waves someone
down and within seconds they’ve opened fire on him. He hops in Bessie and takes
off, relentlessly pursued by “Infernoverse” Benton and a slew of other RFS
(essentially, Infernoverse UNIT) troops. I know in the last episode I said
Camfield wasn’t bringing a hell of a lot to this story so far, but here he’s
firing on all cylinders.

But there’s also the character work. Camfield’s not just
good at dynamicism and action, he’s also remarkably good at character work.
They hit the proper notes and he knows exactly what he wants to do with them.

Only that’s not really what happened, is it? Camfield became
ill at the rehearsals for this episode and removed himself from the progress
leading to Barry Letts to step in and take over the studio shootings based on
Camfield’s copious planning and notes. As such, Letts is actually the ghost
director for this and the rest of the episodes of this story. So what we’re
looking at here is technically Letts behind the camera orchestrating an attempt
at Camfield’s vision. Camfield did, of course, direct the location shooting
(which was all done prior to his withdrawal) so that’s clearly all him. And
honestly, he did a hell of a job on it. Not just the action, but the reveal of
Liz Shaw is absolutely stunning. The hand cam, the turn around, the drawing on
The Doctor. It’s all superb.

Everyone else is chewing scenery, though. The Doctor is
taking the opportunity to figure out both what’s going on and how to fix the
problems of this world. The parallel universe bit he figures out rather
quickly. It’s the “what do I do next” that’s problematic.

It’s interesting then that suddenly The Doctor is much more
gung ho about stopping the drilling process in this world. But why? Why here?
Why now? Perhaps it’s because he thinks of this world as just another science
experiment, or at least, the fruits of his labor. If it weren’t for his
curiosity he wouldn’t be in this predicament. Or, even better, if he weren’t so
curious about what was on the other side of the divide this entire universe
wouldn’t exist. Knowledge makes things factual and real in ways our
imaginations kinda can’t.

So really, the only way this parallel universe even exists
is by The Doctor arriving in it. If this were “regular Inferno” (ie without the
Infernoverse storyline) we would watch the drilling-gone-wrong story and never
ever know about the existence of the Infernoverse and, of course, it wouldn’t
matter because it wouldn’t figure into our conception of what “Inferno” is about.
But because The Doctor has ported over to the Infernoverse it suddenly matters.
This world he finds himself in suddenly matters because he’s caught in the
midst of whatever dangers this world contains. And it means he runs about
trying to fix the computer and trying to tell everyone that Stahlman’s a bad
guy and harping on it here more than he did in “our” universe. And it’s because
this place matters to him. He fought to get here, he’s going to fight to get it
to its full potential, which it’s squandering with its fascism and whatnots.

That said, the cliffhanger is bland. “Are you gonna come
with me?” is not a good place for the show to be moving forward. Give us
something new or some badass reveal or something. Don’t sit me in the middle of
another “will The Doctor get out of this?” It’s pathetic, and lame by
comparison to the urgency of the rest of the episode.

Part 4:

And it’s funny because this cliffhanger is exactly the same,
only better for a variety of different reasons.

With this episode Houghton takes the opportunity to explore
the various facets of all the differences between the different characters.
Specifically, here, we get a construction of a relationship between Liz Shaw
and The Doctor. Liz, as The Doctor points out, had a vague interest in physics
when she was in school but chose a different career path, leading her to her
position as Section Leader. And indeed, you could argue that as Section Leader,
Infernoverse Liz is more successful than our Liz. She’s a commander of many
troops. Yes, she reports to the Brigadier but she’s… professionally more
successful than Liz. Liz is “just a scientist”.

What The Doctor digs at is that there’s an aspect of
Infernoverse Liz that’s discontent. That this world is a bleaker and sadder
place than she gives it credit for. And it gets to her. You can tell. Already
this is a start for a good relationship between The Doctor and Infernoverse Liz.

But for all the goodness, there is wanton evil. The
Brigadier is a bastard in this and doesn’t give a sweet damn who The Doctor is.
He’s going to give everything he’s got to settling this Doctor situation once
and for all. It doesn’t matter if The Doctor is lying. It must be settled. And
that puts The Brigadier as a totem of fascism for the story. It’s interesting
because without a Doctor to be his friend we get that The Brigaider is a much
colder, eviler soldier than he was in our timeline. And is that down to The
Doctor I wonder? Did their experiences with The Yeti and the Cybermen really
change him that much? Allow him to laugh and smile and think that sometimes the
world is a little bit mad? And perhaps this Brigadier is just a bit blind to
that way of thinking.

Haha. Get it? Blind?

But seriously, I love how the majority of shots featuring
The Brigade Leader in this are of the left (eyepatch) side of his face. It
highlights his lack of humanity and how much of his self-depricating style has
been lost in the wake of the Infernoverse.

And I love that The Doctor is still fighting here. Now he’s
in the Infernoverse you can tell that Pertwee is just giving him more life and
more purpose. This is a problem he can deal with. It’s a problem he can work
around and get around. But he’s a little scared of what’s going on. The way he
backs off from the Primord in the cell is hair-raising because you don’t expect
The Doctor to get scared at something so easily, do you. But he has reason. The
way that Primord moves those bars is… messed up.

Finally, the cliffhanger is basically the same as the last
one. The Doctor has a gun pointed on him. But what Letts/Camfield/Houghton do
that’s so great is play it against more and more insanity. Those are the best
cliffhangers, methinks. Because what we have here is The Doctor getting
re-captured and perhaps even shot (and it is a parallel cliffhanger so there is
the high probability of them, say, blowing up the world as it were). But we
also have the mining operation breaching the earth’s crust and a countdown that
reflects that notion. We have The Brigade Leader keeping order and soldiers
marching all over the place. And we have a frenetic attempt to try to get this
madness stopped. And as the clock counts down from ten we slowly become aware
that what we’re watching is them counting down to the end of the episode.

It’s a neat trick and highly effective, methinks. But it
also points to something even worse. If Stahlman is clearly the bad guy of the
piece, what’s the worst thing that could happen in the story? He gets what he
wants. And what does he want to do?

He wants to breach the Earth’s crust.

We know this is bad. But it’s also that this, the worst
thing that could possibly happen in the story, is happening on a parallel dimension
where ANYTHING could happen (again, they could blow up the world if they wanted
to because quite frankly this isn’t “our world”), the worst is now possible and
perhaps inevitable. Now we’re about to see what happens when the worst happens.
And when The Doctor does inevitably get back to our world (because that’s
what’s going to happen or rather SPOILERS) it’ll be with the terrible knowledge
of what happens when the worst happens.

What’s not to love?

Part 5:

With the countdown happening at the end of the last episode
and The Doctor held at gunpoint and about to be shot, what happens next? How do
you reconcile both of those events?

The solution, of course, is to have one interfere with the
other. As soon as the drill penetrates the earth’s crust it throws everyone
about willy-nilly and leads to a panic in which everyone flees the facility.
The Doctor is reprieved from getting shot. But perhaps more importantly it mean
that Houghton and co are moving forward with this drilling storyline and going
(basically) all in on it. And in fact The Doctor even says as much. This world
is ending. There is no hope. It’s hell on earth as the power of the earth’s
core is unleashed to the surface.

It’s suitably apocalyptic, and of course, that coincides
with the fact that this episode sees the entire cast of extras disappear from
the facility, leaving us with only The Doctor, The Brigade Leader, Section Leader
Shaw, Stahlman (sorta), Sutton, and Petra.

The result hits home the bleakness of the situation. What
was just in the previous episode a booming scientific research facility is now
suddenly a wasteland devoid of life. Yeah, it saves on money to not have so
many extras, but it also gets the point across that this is the world now. And it
paints a picture of the world we don’t see. Much of this episode spends its
time in the facility and we don’t see the chaos outside. We don’t see the panic
in the streets or the streets devoid of panic as everyone clutches their loved
ones to them.

But we can imagine it.

Again, this is the thing that Doctor Who does best. Just the hint at scope allows the creative
team behind the show to paint a picture in the imagination of the
extra-diegetic world outside of what’s actually happening on screen. We’ll see
even more of this in the next episode, but it works shockingly well here, and
it makes our heroes’ situation that much more dire. Outside of what The Doctor
tells us (that it’s over, that this world is doomed, that we need to bail and
get back to his universe that perhaps one universe might be saved), this shows
us something specific. The Brigade Leader and Section Leader Shaw (and Sutton
and Petra) are all trying to hold the world up with tape while the whole thing
comes crashing to the ground. It makes everyone look desperate and quixotic.

To compound to the issue, it’s also here that the story
turns into a monster story.

Now I like this turning into a monster story. It’s total
kitsch/camp in the best of ways. There’s nothing like watching Benton turn into
one of these werewolves or even seeing him get dragged over to one as it
touches him and starts to transform him? It’s total fun. But more than that, it
gives our heroes something to do, something to fight against. It gives them
hope in a weird way, doesn’t it? At least when they’re fighting against
werewolves there’s the possibility that they might be able to score a small
victory. Only it’s probable they won’t, isn’t it? This goop (whatever it is)
has the power to transform any person into a werewolf with even the slightest
touch. And the werewolves can convert whoever with a touch. And they’re
remarkably difficult to kill.

So it’s all a bit futile, isn’t it?

And yet, they’re still going to try and fight. Because
that’s what they do.

Before I jump away from this, though, I suppose I should
mention how incredibly silly this whole storyline is. And I’m not even talking
about the bit where it’s silly to think the Earth’s core erupts out of the
Earth and devours the Earth (I mean, lol, that’s not coming). No. I’m talking
about the idea that there’s this goop that’s red hot that’s buried in the
earth’s crust that is leaking from the earth and that can devolve/transform
humans into “Primords” (these werewolf creatures). It’s remarkably, impossibly
silly. But it’s also the same sorta logic as “space sickness”. One of the ideas
of the Space Program in the 1960s (or at least, the Soviets DID think this at
one point) was that space was [essentially] full of cooties, specifically space
cooties, and that if you ever went out into space you would be infected and if
you ever came back to earth you would potentially infect the entire earth.

Okay, maybe that’s not a true story. But my camp counselor
at space camp told me that once upon a time and that that was the reason they
never brought Laika home and left her to die, when in actuality the truth was
probably that Laika was not financially worth bringing back. So instead of
telling a bunch of ten year olds a story about how there are people in the
world who don’t give a rat’s fart about animals and that they are used as guinea
pigs all the time and a bunch of high profile, ridiculously smart rocket
scientists strapped an innocent puppy to a rocket and shot it into space giving
it what, essentially, amounted to the weirdest death sentence ever (Christ this
is morbid) they made up some story about how the people of fifty years ago
believed silly stories about how a bunch of Soviet (and probably American)
scientists strapped a dog to a rocket and jettisoned it into space with no
plans on bringing it back because they thought it would be infected by vicious
“space germs” that are going to get in through a vacuum seal and ravage a poor
dog’s body, so they left it to die in space, making it a legend rather than
risking bringing it down to earth and creating some Inferno-level hell in which
suddenly space plague is ravaging the Soviet bloc and rapidly spreading faster
than Communism and destroying life on the planet in the process.

Well, at least with the second one we get a bit of “who buh
wha?”

But seriously, this whole thing with the Primords is
remarkably silly, but not unwelcome. I just like bitching about the “science”
of this.

It does bother me, though, that like… there’s a paranoia to
this. And maybe I’m just reading too much into what Houghton seems to be saying
in this. But it’s the idea that there’s danger in the unknown regions of the
unexplored, danger in things that make no sense to have danger. Why would
drilling deep into the Earth’s crust be such a bad thing? I mean, besides the
fact that there’s really no reason to. What we’re kinda seeing is The Earth
fighting back, just like the idea of “space sickness” is no different than
space telling you “don’t go there”.
Because you can’t fight this shit. You can’t fight primordial ooze or
The Earth’s crust. You live here. You can’t find space. We live there. You
know? It’s kinda frustrating to think that the politics of this story say
“don’t do [scientific whatever]” because it’s scary out there.

I mean, and perhaps that’s not what it’s saying, but that’s
what I take from it and it puts the sourest of tastes in my mouth.

Part 6:

At the end of the last episode, The Doctor reveals that he
has a plan. He doesn’t illustrate what that plan is, but he does say that he at
least has one.

This episode sees him enact that plan and what we get is a
very methodical, well-orchestrated execution of that plan. It doesn’t
completely work (Petra doesn’t get the power working the first time and has to
run back and rewire in what feels (inevitably) like a bit more padding until
it’s time for the episode’s cliffhanger. As a point, though, it’s a relatively
minor point and DOES actually feature the “final end” for Infernoverse
Stahlman, so I suppose that helps the argument in favor for it somewhat. AND it
gives The Brigade Leader the opportunity to refill his gun with bullets,
although how the hell he was able to do that despite doing nothing but hanging
out with The Doctor and Section Leader Shaw is completely beyond me.

That said? I really, really love this. Like a lot.

And really, what isn’t to love here? It’s nothing short of
an absolute triumph. From the second The Brigade Leader, Section Leader Shaw,
and Petra escape from the facility and burst out into the outside world I can’t
help but be struck by the aesthetic. Everything’s undergone a yellow-orange
tinge to convey just how fast the planet seems to be cooking itself alive. So
visually it’s stunning, but also from a sound design point (that’s right, let’s
talk sound design) all we hear are the nearing eruptions as the world starts to
tear itself apart and the slow, ominous tones of what sounds like bass as the
end gets nearer and nearer. It’s remarkably bleak and shocking and a far cry
from The Doctor driving along in Bessie “La-La-ing” his way through opera.

But everything is unraveling, and it’s shocking to see. At
the center of it all was The Brigade Leader coming apart at the seams. Put a
gun in his hand and he’s scary, but take away his men and the infrastructure
that gives him power and you’re left with a man who can posture but not hold
his own. Yes, he’s reckless and insane and yes he does pull a gun on Sutton AND
he pulls the trigger, but that gun is like him: useless without ammunition to
back up the case. And it leads to him resorting to that excellent barbaric fist
fight, where The Doctor screams at the both of them that they shouldn’t be
fighting like animals. It’s heartbreaking, but true. The world ends and you’ll
still beat up your best friend for sleeping with your girl (or something of
similar petty ilk; I say petty because if the world’s ending, a small
interpersonal drama is relatively petty).

Of course, his downfall comes at the hands of Section Leader
Shaw, who is totally done with The Brigade Leader’s shit. She shoots him in the
back and with little fanfare. She puts her gun back with little fanfare. She
doesn’t care about her life anymore. It’s heartbreaking.

That’s the thing about this story though. It’s a fascinating
look at people who know it’s over and don’t really seem to realize it. I mean,
they do. They know the world is ending, but it’s the same thing where it’s
like… until it actually ends you can’t really fathom the thing actually
happening. There are just some things our brains cannot really comprehend. And
so our rag-tag band of folk run around trying to save The Doctor, which gives
them a focus of what they can do so they don’t have to think about the
forthcoming oblivion that’s going to destroy the lives of them, their friends,
and everything they’ve ever known or come into contact with.

Which is why the end of this episode is impossibly bleak and
one of the best Doctor Who episode
enders (cliffhangers?) ever.

Because they blow up the world.

That’s it for the Infernoverse. Fare thee well, fascist
England! It’s over. We see the world collapsing, panic, tears, screaming as the
world erupts into chaos as the earth starts to tear itself apart. And that’s it
for them isn’t it? That’s the point of the last bit of this. The Doctor lost
and his noble thought experiment was fucking destroyed by his inability to save
it. And that’s possible because this world mostly doesn’t matter, so they can
blow it up. But it’s still an entire world. It’s still jarring to watch. This
is the world we inhabited for four episodes.

And now it’s obliterated. And
completely destroyed. And I’m eating it up with a spoon.

Part 7:

Oh right. The drilling storyline
wasn’t that interesting.

What’s interesting about the way
this episode starts is how it almost buries the lead about the end of episode
six. Yes, it makes a call back to the previous episode and we watch the
destruction of the Infernoverse again. But the next thing we see is The Doctor
on the floor of the hut with the TARDIS console to one side and Bessie to the
other. So he made it back. Back yes, but there’s a very Oz feel about it. It
feels like he went over the rainbow and came back and is waking up from some
horrible nightmare (wake up being a relative term because he doesn’t really
wake up until we’re almost halfway through the episode) and if there wasn’t an
entire subplot in the mining storyline over the past few episodes, there’d be a
question over whether or not The Doctor even went into the parallel universe or
if the whole thing took place in his mind.

Nope. It happened. Why else would
The Doctor look like hell?

That said, this episode comes
across feeling much more subdued than the last one, which is not exactly a
surprise. Last episode was the final episode in a massive four-part story about
how a few people didn’t listen to a crazy person and it resulted in the world
cracking like an egg. It was done artfully and masterfully and was all built up
to get to a certain point in which the stakes were as high as they could
possibly be. Here the stakes are the same, but there’s not the same sense of
urgency. Not only will the story not, you know, blow up the world, but they
also did that already. They’d have to top that, and they’d have top it within
the next twenty minutes, which, quite, frankly, is not going to happen, and
subconsciously I think we know it.

Needless to say, it’s nowhere near
the previous episode. The urgency is less. Hell, even the bit where there’s a
countdown is nowhere near as intense or exciting as it was back in episode
four.

What doesn’t help the world is how
mad everyone is, and not in an Infernoverse way. At least with the Infernoverse
it was understandable that the world would be topsy-turvy, but it’s amazing
that everyone who’s working on the drilling project is down with whatever it is
Stahlman is doing, or at least, they think it’s not bad enough that they have
to depose him or get him out of the way. Sutton is proof of that. Sutton does a
whole lotta talking about Stahlman and Stahlman’s insanity and how he’s gone
around the bend, only he never does anything about it until it’s way too late
and the world is almost destroyed.

Now I’m all for that posturing. I
understand the story needs Stahlman to be an antagonist to the proceedings, but
at a certain point it crosses the line into wildly unbelievable. Stahlman is
impossibly erratic, unable to pay attention for long stretches of time (without
staring off into space), unwavering in his devotion to the project, at times
foregoing just about every health and safety code he can think of in order to
get to the surface as fast as he can (and for what? It’s not like there’s any
competing projects, so what’s his rush?). He’s probably keeping his workers
working incredibly unsafe, round-the-clock hours. And he’ll also disappear for
minutes, maybe hours at a time and with no explanation to where he’s going or
where he’s been. Does this sound like a guy to put in charge of your multi-million
dollar project? I mean, some of those things are okay but all of it? I certainly
wouldn’t keep that person on board, and certainly not in a leadership position.

So it’s weird seeing him walk
around like a total crazy person and people being okay with that. Someone for
the love of god please shut him the hell down.

The actual mechanics of it,
though, don’t quite work out. Yes, The Doctor’s line of “So free will isn’t an
illusion after all” is one that doesn’t quite hold water really. And even if it
did, what about this world makes him think that what happens here is inevitable
in any way? If free will wasn’t an illusion wouldn’t the parallel universe have
not been the same? I mean, the parallel universe was a despotic, fascist
nightmare. Surely that’s an indicator that we’re dealing with at least some
version of a reality with a solid lack of predestination, yes? Because what
does The Doctor even do here? Yes, he helps shut down the drill, but it’s not
given much weight and it’s not like he learned a lot from the Infernoverse.

He’s like a survivor from The ‘Nam.
“I saw some things, man. And some stuff.” But it doesn’t really figure into his
anything moving forward, or even in this story.

That disconnect really hurts this
more than anything. Yes, it’s a seven part story, and the structure of it works
remarkably well in theory: it’s a four part story in which the third part is
its own contained four part story. On paper, that’s something that’s really
exciting. The only problem is the framing device here and elsewhere is quite
dull and uninteresting. It’s clear Houghton has no idea how to reconcile the
two things, and even the thing that might work in this episode (The Doctor
fights an on-the-loose-not-quite-Primord-yet Primord) don’t work because they
don’t pay off anything. It’s not like The Doctor didn’t go up against that
Primord initially. Or maybe it’s that that Primord was taken out by UNIT and
here The Doctor totally handles it because he’s a bamf.

Alas. It’s just a dull wrap-up
episode that doesn’t really build off of anything or amount to much of
anything. It’s a wasted opportunity that really depends on how high a level the
sixth episode got you to and how blind it can make you to the final bit of
episode here.

The one last aspect of this I’ll
mention is the fact that The Doctor is operating his TARDIS console without it actually
being in the TARDIS. Now, disregarding the question of “how the hell did they
get the whole console out of the TARDIS doors (because dimensionally
transcendental doesn’t explain doorjamb technology and if It did OH MY GOD
COULD IT HELP ME MOVE), there’s an interesting dynamic that’s formed when the
console is in the hut in the Infernoverse. I mean, doesn’t the console being in
an enclosed space make the enclosed space feel like the TARDIS? So when The
Doctor is hanging out in the Infernoverse and he finds a whole ‘nother
dimension in there and (if you say that the hut doors aren’t the TARDIS’s exit in
this case) The Infernoverse is just a construct of The TARDIS’s imagination.

Which makes me grin.

Final Thoughts?: So this is considered the greatest Pertwee story ever made? I dunno. I'd have to respectfully disagree.

That's not that it's bad. It's so, so not. Hell, it's ridiculously watchable and a whole lotta fun. But without the conceit of the Infernoverse this story is nothing.

Now I know that's really a bullshit statement. Of course the conceit of the story is important to the story. And sure, it is. It's what makes this story so lauded and memorable. Doctor Who has only attempted one parallel universe story since this (and it took Nu-Who to do it), so it stands out for its uniqueness. But without that conceit and the novelty of it, what does this story do? It doesn't really break the bank, it doesn't try for anything out-of-this-world spectacular. Sure, it blows up the world but you can easily fold that into the conceit aspect of this episode. It's a phenomenal use of the conceit, yes, but it's also the most extreme and amazing example in a story populated by novelty or what have you.

The novelty, though. The novelty goes a long way. There's nothing like seeing Nicholas Courtney positively chew up the god damn scenery and stalk around in that scar and eyepatch of his. Caroline John's Section Leader Shaw is really excellent and proof about how wasted Caroline John was. I mean, that's not an insult to her or saying that Liz is bad. I'm just saying she's really good and really threw her back into the role and making it come alive and sing and that this is it/the last story for the wonderful Liz Shaw is heartbreakingly unfair. Every time I see her I love her just that little bit more and rewatching these makes me appreciate her in ways I didn't when I started watching. There's an empathy to her that Pertwee could really use. Yes, the empathy for Jo comes full circle, but the we-did-it! hug that The Doctor gives Liz once he's shut down the drill is remarkably intimate and cathartic.

And then there's Jon Pertwee and the fact that this is one of the best outtings for his Doctor. It's basically the turn-on-the-spot moment from "Planet of the Spiders" for four full episodes. He's up against the wall and having a grand time being The Doctor and pushing it to an energetic, intense extreme.

But the reason that Courtney, John, and Pertwee are able to give it their all is because it feels like an insanely delightful, go-for-it story, and for four episodes that's exactly what this story is. The middle four episodes are about as rompy as Doctor Who ever gets and they're also about as good a romp as you can get from Doctor Who. The only problem is the actual a-story of the piece. The B-story with the Infernoverse is quite excellent. But every time The Doctor is in the A-story or we're dealing the A-story (that is to say, the stuff with our universe and not the Infernoverse) I want to turn it off. Quite simply, there's nothing there. It's generic and those three episodes really sour-bookend the other four. The other four episodes feel like they're something else entirely, full of a dark, ominous tone, manic energy, and real passion for the material. The A-story three feel bland, slow, and uninteresting by comparison.

It's real whiplash, it is.

So not my favorite Pertwee story and easily the weakest of its season. But it's terribly fun and watchable and even then that speaks more to the mostly-solid quality of the rest of the Pertwee era than it does reflect poorly on this story. Way less than the sum of its parts, but worth remembering as a classic if only for the middle four episodes, which are bonkers insane wonderful time.

Next Time!: 5th Doctor! Peri! A Magma Beast! Gun-running! Drug-smuggling! Spectrox and its Toxaemia! A Bastard-Off! Everyone dies! And so, so much more! "The Caves of Androzani"! Coming Next Tuesday!

2 comments:

Wow. I was expecting the usual fandom praise-lavishing, and instead, I get... something I agree with every word of! Rare to see someone stand out from the pack like this. :-) Nicely said, and fully agreed!

I love that you always manage to read further into stories than perhaps was envisaged by the writers or directors, and find new, subtextual excitement in their work that maybe nobody has before - sure some of it is really from you and not from them, but reading your blog has really afforded me [and I'm sure a load of others] a fresh and captivating insight into Doctor Who that, after watching almost all we thought the series could offer, never fails to disappoint, whether the discussion be about direction, writing or performance. Cheers for all!

About The Blog...

I'm a recentish Doctor Who fan (Summer 2008, really) who loves experiencing and discussing Doctor Who. From its triumphs to its flaws to its high points to its lows, we talk about it all and nothing is not fair game.

This blog discusses all the Doctors from Hartnell to McGann, covering all The Doctor Who stories from the classic run on television. Other people focus on the directing and the music and the performances, but my focus (because I work in television) is on the actual production, writing, and construction of these stories and you can find all of our entries via the index at the top of the blog.

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